La Di Da
by Wingscutdarkness
Summary: Once upon a time, we moved across the country to a city that's kind of weird. Even more so are some of the kids at skool. Like the one with the green skin. And the crazy one who thinks the one with the green skin is an alien. OC!


**A/N: . . . *Offers chocolate chip pancakes***

**Disclaimer: Invader Zim belongs to Jhonen Vasquez.**

* * *

When an adult lies and says that something will be fantastically fun, they're usually talking to a child who's extremely gullible. Or one that was raised not to run away screaming when they know they're being lied to.

Me, I fall into the second category.

I didn't freak out or lock myself in my room and refuse to cooperate when my dad sat me down one day and told me we were moving far away. I just kind of went with it. Though being bribed with gummy worms makes almost any situation more agreeable.

But even with candy involved, it's sort of hard to squash a mountain down into a molehill when you're too busy being incredibly bored because you've been driving in an old and rusty van for a very, very, very long time.

I suppose this moving thing is all my dad's fault.

. . . Naw, I take that back. I knew that my dad didn't choose to get transferred; not that he was against it or anything.

Actually, he was pretty happy. Incidentally, the science lab in the city we're moving to is owned by this really famous scientist, whose TV show happens to be what inspired my dad to get off of the Kleenex-cluttered couch and do something semi-productive with his life. Like going back to work and start taking care of his little kid among other things.

I guess landing a job in an extremely advanced lab and getting to work with one of your biggest idols *would* be pretty exciting. You know, if you're old enough to get a job and you actually like science.

Everyone who knows me thinks that having a scientist as a dad would be so awesome. And yeah, I guess it would be except that hardly anything to do with science interests me.

I find it boring. Extremely boring. Like this road trip. No, wait, this road trip was more than boring; it was zombifying.

I made a scary face, stuck my arms out stiffly in front of me, and started making zombie-ish noises. After a few seconds of this, my dad told me to stop being distracting and read a book or look out the window instead of being bored.

But I hate reading. And watching the sickly green pine trees, dull stretches of flat land, and other repetitive scenery blur past isn't that particularly interesting either.

I guess I dozed off for a while, because when my dad shook me awake I had a horrible crick in my neck that hurt a lot. But I straightened it anyways once I noticed that a bunch of tall buildings had replaced the forests and fields.

The further we drove into the city, the more congested the streets got. Pretty soon, there was so much traffic that we were barely moving. The upside to this was that I got to see a lot of weird-looking places along the street, like a pizza place with a giant inflatable pig on the roof.

When the traffic finally thinned out and we left downtown and headed into a quieter neighborhood, my ears felt sort of weird from the lack of honking. We passed a large red building with a sign on it that said _Skool _and I uncricked my neck even more just to look back as we drove past. Going to a new school was probably the part of moving that I was most excited about, yet looked forward to the least. Today was Sunday, so tomorrow was my first day. And I would probably be walking rather than taking the bus, because just a few blocks away from the Skool, we turned into a crescent and stopped in front of a small house with light blue siding and practically no front yard.

My legs were all tingly with pins and needles as I threw open the door, jumped out of the van, and followed my dad up the sidewalk and to the house. I waited impatiently as he stuck a key in the doorknob, jangling it a little before turning and finally pushing open the front door, which creaked loudly.

The first thing I noticed was that the floors were all hardwood, which was excellent. The floors back at our apartment were all scratched and not good at all for sliding back and forth on while wearing socks. I kicked off my shoes and slid around for a while. And then went to explore the rest of the house.

The top floor had two small bedrooms. One had a window with a lovely view of the side of the house beside us, and also a scraggly tree close enough to climb out onto if I opened the window. Which was cool.

There was no basement, and when I came back from exploring all there was to be explored, the empty space everywhere was starting not to be so empty anymore. I put my shoes back on and went outside to help my dad bring in what I could. But all that was left that wasn't too heavy for me to carry were the boxes marked _Lil. _I brought them all up to the room with the scraggly tree outside of it before my dad could say no.

Because of the different time zones or whatever, I had to go to bed way earlier than I was used to. After my dad helped me bring everything else up to the room I had picked, I ended up laying awake for a long time, and when I finally fell asleep, it seemed like minutes before his voice came weaving through the sleepy haze and into my head.

An unfamiliar ceiling greeted me when I opened my eyes. I squinted up at it for a minute, confused. Then I blinked and looked around at the white walls that surrounded me. Wait a minute . . . my walls aren't white, my walls are green! My tired brain struggled to understand all the unfamiliarness. Then I saw the boxes everywhere and remembered.

My dad called for me again, and said that I was going to be late for school.

School. The first place I was going to have to deal with all the awkwardness of being new.

Squinting at the daylight streaming thinly through the curtain-less window, I got up and stumbled over to the boxes with _clothes_ scrawled messily on the sides in permanent marker.

Dad called me a third time, and I yelled back and told him I was up as I scratched the tape off of a box, opened it, and rummaged around until I found some clothes that didn't look too wrinkled. Baby butterflies flew around in my stomach as I got dressed, grabbed my bag, and ran lightly down the stairs.

Dad was sitting with a bunch of papers in front of him at a table in the middle of the room. The unpacked boxes and what little furniture we had were all pushed away from him and cluttered up the rest of the small space.

I sat down on a large box beside the table. "You're not working today?"

Back at home, he was _always_ working. Most of the time, he worked all day and usually stayed at the lab for most of the night too. I assumed it would be like that at this new job too.

"I start on thursday." He stopped writing and glanced up. "Don't you want to wear something a little nicer? Like a skirt or something?"

I looked down at my black leggings, orange shirt, and lime-green, high top sneakers. "What's wrong with this? I want to look normal on my first day of school, Dad. And plus, I hate skirts!"

". . . Well okay. But at least fix your hair."

I very surreptitiously put on my pageboy-type hat.

"You know where the Skool is, right? And you're okay with walking all by yourself?" His pen scratched loudly against the paper, like he was trying to get whatever complicated thing he was thinking of down before all the other crazy ideas in his head distracted him.

"Yup." I reached over and stole a piece of toast off of the plate beside his elbow.

"Are you sure you don't want me to drive you?"

I chewed on the hard bread crust and wrinkled my nose at the smell of coffee. "No, that's okay. Your van is all big and weird and rusty."

"Alright . . . " Dad muttered absentmindedly and tapped his pen against the side of his coffee mug. "Be careful. Don't talk to strangers, and don't take candy from them either."

I rolled my eyes a bit as I finished my toast. I'm not _that_ crazy about candy. Well, okay, yes I am, but I know better than to take it from strangers.

"I know! I won't! Bye!" I got off the box, grabbed my backpack, and left the house before he could warn me about anything else.

My dad is very overprotective. He's been like that ever since Mom-  
. . . Ever since I was a little kid.

I half-walked, half-trotted down the sidewalk, refusing to think about stuff like that because there wasn't really any point.

And plus, there were many more interesting things to think about. Like how much the clouds looked like mashed potatoes. Or how the sun reflected off of the windows of the houses I walked past and shone right into my eyes. Or how gross it smelt when a school bus rattled past in a cloud of poisonous-smelling fumes.

When the sidewalk turned and headed up towards the big Skool building, the baby butterflies in my stomach began bouncing around like me whenever I forget to take my medicine.

A few kids jostled and pushed past me as I walked up the front steps and stopped just inside the doorway. In front of me stretched a poorly lit hallway. To my left was a room that looked sort of looked like an office. I walked through the open door and saw someone who looked sort of like a secretary. She was holding a toy can with a picture of a cow on it that made mooing noises when she moved it back and forth.

I walked up to her desk. "Hi, I'm Lil."

_Mooooo . . ._

The secretary looked down at me with her chin in her hand. She had red, scraggly hair that was tied back. "Yeah? What do you want?"

"I'm new here." I told her.

"Yeah?"

_Moooo!_

"Uh-huh."

The secretary sighed boredly. "Alright, what's your name again?"

"Lil." I repeated and looked around as she put down her mooing can and typed something on the keyboard in front of her. There was a big potted plant in the corner that looked pretty wilted and some small framed certificates and pictures hanging on the wall behind the secretary's desk.

"Oh yeah, here you are. The kid who just moved here, right?"

I nodded.

"Okay then, I guess I'll show you to your classroom." The secretary pushed herself out of her chair. "And this piece of paper has your schedule and locker number and everything on it, so don't lose it."

I took the paper she held out and followed her out the door into the dark and rather creepy-looking hallway. Lots of lockers lined the walls, and there were many doors and hallways branching out from the one we were walking down. It would be easy to get lost here.

"Just wait here," The secretary muttered as we stopped in front of a door. She went inside, then came out a few seconds later with someone wearing a long, shadowy purple dress that reminded me of an old vampire movie I had seen once. She was tall, and had narrow glasses and grey hair pulled tightly back from her frowning face.

"Alright, you're not needed anymore so go away." She rasped to the secretary before turning to me. I shrank back a little as she peered down at me in a very intimidating way. "Lil? I'm Ms. Bitters. Welcome to Skool. We don't tolerate hats here." She stuck out her hand toward me. Her fingers seemed to curl into claws. I noticed that her neck was abnormally long and thin, and resisted the urge to shudder as I reluctantly took off my hat and handed it over. Ms. Bitters stared at my hair for a minute, and then gripped my shoulder and escorted, actually more like pushed, me through the doorway.

The room reeked of paste and pencil shavings. The walls were all painted an unpleasant green color and had a few faded maps and educational posters hanging on them. There were three rows of desks, and along the wall parallel to the door was a row of squarish windows that could use a good wash or two or seven.

Ms. Bitters let go of my shoulder. "Class, this is Lil. Lil, introduce yourself."

I stopped trying to see out of the grimy windows and looked up at the kids sitting in their desks. Some looked back at me with mild interest but most were doodling in notebooks or reading or sleeping. "Um . . . Hi, I'm Lil." Um . . . Duh. "Me and my dad just moved here from-"

"That's very nice. Now take these and go sit down." Ms. Bitters pointed at an empty desk in the middle row behind a big kid with short orange hair.

I closed my mouth and picked the stack of text books off of her desk before going and sitting. The paint was flaking off of the sides of the chair, which was just big enough for my backpack to fit under. I piled the textbooks on top of the scratched desk and pushed my hair away from my face, hoping it didn't look too horrible.

At the front of the room, Ms. Bitters sat down stiffly in the tall chair behind her desk and clasped her bony hands together. I took out a pencil and notebook out of my backpack and waited for her to start teaching or something, but all she did was sit there with a look on her face that seemed to suggest that she wished the class would disintegrate.

Finally, she cleared her throat. "Today's lesson will be about grass seed."

And then she started talking about grass seed.

The kids around me started scribbling in their notebooks like this was nothing strange at all, and I sat there all confused for a minute, wondering if this was one of those jokes that you play on the new kid or something. Eventually, I put down my pencil and pulled the schedule the secretary had give me out of my backpack. There was a doodle of a cross-eyed cow on the bottom left corner, and according to the rest of the paper, it looked like Ms. Bitters taught nearly all my subjects.

I was doomed. Doomed!  
I wish I had some candy.

The next class was pretty much the same. Boring. Extremely boring. I almost fell asleep.  
And when the bell rang, it was so loud it nearly scared me to death. Everyone jumped out of their seats and ran towards the door, and I picked up my books, leaned over, and pulled my backpack out from under the chair. How the heck was I going to survive in this school all day when my teacher just spent all of two classes talking about grass seed and other stuff that was irrelevant to anything?

Ms. Bitters hissed as I trudged out of the room. I don't think she really liked me. Well, I didn't really like her either. She was really creepy. And plus, she took my hat.

I found the locker number written on my piece of paper and shoved my stuff in it before closing the door and following the last few kids who were heading towards what turned out to be the lunch room. Some classes were there already. Most of the kids from my class formed a line that went along the side of the room and I joined them. When I got to the front, some sort of whitish gunk was spooned onto my tray. I went sat down at the nearest empty table and stared down at the unidentifiable mess on my plate, not really sure if it was edible or not.

"Ugh, I hate corn and mayonnaise day." A very pretty girl with spiky, light purple hair and a black headband slid her tray onto the table and sat down beside me to tie up her shoe.

I paused with a spoonful halfway to my mouth. "Corn and mayonnaise?"

"Yup!"

"Eew!" I let go of my spoon. It sank halfway into the goop with a faint sucking sound.

"Well, it's not _that_ bad. You sort of get used to it." The girl said.

I watched in disgust as she eached over to take a quick bite of the congealed mass on her plate before going back to her shoes. When she had finished, she left the table and walked off to join a bunch of popular-looking girls. I hurriedly pushed my tray away, not really hungry any more.

We all went outside after lunch to an area behind the Skool with playground equipment and a few trees. I sat down on a bench, still feeling a little queasy from watching everyone eat their gross lunches.

Everyone else seemed to be fine though. A few kids from a younger class were running all over and chasing each other, some around my age had organized what looked like a very violent game of dodge ball, and others were standing around in small groups and doing boring stuff like talking. Boring stuff! Why did there have to be boring stuff everywhere? I unwrapped a piece of grape bubble gum and stuck it in my mouth.

A girl wearing an orange and purple-striped dress over black leggings walked up to me. "Hi," she said shyly and hesitated a bit before sitting down on the bench beside me. She had huge front teeth, and braces, and dark reddish-purple hair arranged into three spiky pigtails.

I swung my legs back and forth. "Want some gum?"

"No thanks,"

I stuck the gum back into my pocket.

"See that guy?" The girl pointed towards the dodge ball game.

I looked and watched as the orange-haired guy I had sat behind in class picked up this smaller kid, hoisted him up on his shoulder, and began swinging him around, using him like a baseball bat to deflect the hard-looking dodge balls.

"His name is Chunk."

"Wow. He seems kind of . . . violent."

"Yeah. He's one of the biggest bullies at Skool. So you probably want to stay away from him." The girl advised.

"Huh. I . . . sit behind him in class."

"I know." She said.

"Are you in my class too?" I didn't remember noticing her.

"Uh-huh. I sit at the back. That kid over there is Dirge." The girl turned and pointed to a darker-skinned boy sitting over by a tree. "He has webbed toes."

"Eeee!" I squealed. "Really? That's so creepy! How did that happen?"

"I don't know. He says he was born with it." The girl said. "And he's always trying to show everyone who talks to him."

I thought for a minute. "I wonder if he can swim faster than everybody else. Webbed toes could sort of be like flippers, right?"

The girl grinned. "I don't know. You wanna go ask him?"

"No!" I shivered in pretend fear.

"Hey! Look! That new girl with the messy hair is talking to _Gretchen_!"

I glanced up. Three girls were sitting on the swings and snickering at us

"Her first day and she's already making friends with a reject!" A tall blonde girl with two piercings in her right ear sneered.

I felt my face heat up. Gretchen lowered her head and stared at her shoes.

I tried my best to smooth down my hair. ". . . Who are those girls?"

"Well . . . the extremely tall, extremely blonde one is Jessica." Gretchen whispered, still looking down at her feet. "The one with the short dark hair is Aki, and the one with the blue skirt is Letty."

"They don't seem very nice,"

"They're not." Gretchen answered, then fell silent, still looking really embarrassed.

"You know . . . it's okay. My hair's always messy." I told her. "Whenever I try brushing it, it always hurts really bad because of the knots."

"Really?" Gretchen looked up at me. "Why don't you tie it back or something?"

"Sometimes I do. And I keep asking my dad to take me to get my hair cut but he's too busy all the time. It'd be so much easier if my hair was short like that girls'." I pointed at a girl with short, dark purple hair sitting on a bench near the kid with the webbed toes and playing on a handheld video game.

Gretchen looked up. "Oh. That's Gaz. Mostly everyone is scared of her."

I squinted at Gaz. She was pretty small, smaller than me even. "Really? She doesn't look that scary. Who's that boy beside her?"

Gretchen blushed. "That's her brother, Dib. He . . . he's in our class. And he's really good at science."

Ack! Science!  
I started flopping around on the bench, like someone had just force fed me cooked cauliflower or something.

Gretchen stared. "What's wrong with you?"

"I hate science! I hate it so much!"

". . . Oh. Well, that's what our next class is." Gretchen grinned as the bell rang obnoxiously.

I stuck my tongue out in disgust, got up off the bench, and hurried back into the Skool with her.

Science! Science is so boring!

I tried my best not to make a disgusted face as I walked into the classroom after stopping at my locker.

"Lil!" Ms. Bitters made a scary growling noise.

I stopped in my tracks. And then jumped as somehow, suddenly, she and was out from behind her desk and beside me in a manner of seconds.

"Are you chewing gum?" She demanded, looming over me in a very intimidating manner.

I nodded fearfully.

"Go spit it out. Now!" Ms. Bitters pointed one pointy-nailed finger at an overflowing wastebasket beside her desk.

I went and did what she said. Everyone else filing into the room stared at me, and I looked down at my feet to hide the blush I felt creeping across my face.

Ms. Bitters slithered back to her desk like some sort of shadowy, slithery thing. "Go pick up a piece of chalk." She ordered.

Someone giggled as I walked over and picked up a piece of white chalk from the chalkboard tray behind her desk, too freaked out to refuse.

"Now write the words: _I will never chew gum again_."

I glanced up. ". . . W-what?"

The room went dead silent. Ms. Bitters curled her upper lip menacingly. I shivered, then hurriedly turned around and stared writing.

Pretty soon, my fingers started to hurt. The chalk dust made my throat feel all scratchy, and I went through at least two whole sticks of chalk before Ms. Bitters stopped me.

"Good. Now clean it off."

My chalk squeaked slowly to a stop.

She bared her teeth and snarled. "Now!"

I practically threw down the chalk, grabbed an eraser, and spent a good five minutes wiping the board clean, but it seemed like hours. Snickers and whispers echoed around the classroom, making me even more aware of the fact that I was standing there, up in front of the whole class, covered in chalk dust. When I finally finished and went back to my desk, I couldn't stop sneezing. It was totally embarrassing, and I'm sure if I had blushed any harder my head would have exploded.

For the rest of the class, I avoided looking at anyone and drew pattens with the tip of my pen in the chalk dust on my arm. When the bell rang, I jumped up and hurried out of the room, eager to go home so I could stop being chalky.

"Bye Lil," Gretchen said as I passed by her locker. I waved a bit and walked out the front door and down the stairs. Once I was off of the Skool yard, I reached into my pocket, stuck a piece of gum in mouth, and blew huge bubbles all the way home. That first day wasn't at ALL what I was expecting. What kind of school hires a teacher like that in the first place? What kind of school is spelt like S-K-O-O-L? What kind of school doesn't let you chew sugarless gum or wear hats? The injustice of it all! I fake-stomped down the sidewalk for a while, then my feet started to hurt so I quit stomping and just walked normally.

When I got home and opened the front door, I noticed that some more of the furniture was arranged in a logical way instead of clumped together in the middle of the room. There were empty, flattened boxes leaning against the wall, and my dad was sitting at the kitchen table, in the exact same spot he had been when I had left that morning.

"Hi dad."

He looked up with confused expression. Then, apparently remembering that he had a daughter that was me, he blinked and said, "Why are you covered in chalk dust?"

I dropped my bag at the front door. "It's because of my teacher. She made me write words on a chalkboard just because I was chewing gum. And she took away my hat!"

"Hmm." He went back to whatever it was he was doing.

"She's kind of scary. My teacher, I mean." I continued. "She's really tall and can move freakishly fast, which doesn't make sense because she's really old. Like, older than Metooselah!"

"Methuselah." Dad corrected.

"Yeah, him. At lunch time, this girl came and talked to me, and some mean girls made fun of my hair." I told him, and kicked off my shoes.

"Well, maybe you should brush it once in a while."

"I can't! It's a monster! Rawr!" I dove under the table and attacked his foot.

He shifted away and pushed up his glasses. "Lil, did you take your medicine today?"

"Yup. Oh yeah, and the cafeteria food is horrible!" I sat up and grimaced. "It looked fuzzy. I seriously thought it was going to sprout legs and run away. Or pick up a fork and stab me or something." I shuddered.

"Mmm." My dad mmm'd. "Uh, Lil sweetie, I'm really busy right now and I have to fill out this really important paperwork. But you can tell me all about it later, okay?"

I was silent. My dad always said 'later'. And later, he say it again. And again. And again. And-

"Yeah, okay, see ya." I crawled out from underneath the table, got off the floor and went up my room.

I wish science didn't bore me to death. If I talked about science, maybe my dad would be interested in the things I had to say.

Or maybe not. Maybe he would still be like he is now: extremely busy with hardly any time to listen or talk.

I finished what little homework I had and wasted the rest of the night lying on the floor and doodling pictures in my notebook of mutant blobs of cafeteria food with arms and legs and teeth.

The glowing numbers on my alarm clock read 10:32 by the time I decided to be responsible and go to bed. There were a bunch of weird noises outside that I assumed were traffic and were hard to ignore, but I eventually fell asleep and the next day, I woke up late. Which led to much panicking, and running around, and my dad scolding me, and me having to run the last few blocks in order not to be late for Skool.

Ms. Bitters looked at me with her eyes narrowed when I burst through the classroom door all sweaty and panting. I casually looked up at the clock as I smoothed down my hair. Two minutes late. I swallowed. But all that happened was that Ms. Bitters told me to memorize the index in my history book. Which was ridiculous, but not as painful a punishment as it could have been, I guess

At lunch time, the cafeteria had ketchup and rice, which looked and smelt even nastier than the stuff we had yesterday. Gretchen wasn't there today, and I sat all alone at the same table I had sat at yesterday and tried my best not to breathe through my nose.

After the bell had rang and we had all come in from outside and sat down in class, there was a knock on the classroom door. The red-haired secretary poked her head in and said something to Ms. Bitters that I couldn't hear. Ms. Bitters got up and left the room, and my classmates turned in their chairs and started yammering to each other. I puffed out my cheeks and started fidgeting with my pencils, and then the door flew back open.

Everyone fell silent as Ms. Bitters slithered in, followed by a kid with black hair and bluish-purple eyes. He was wearing a pink and black striped shirt, had a metallic-looking pink and silver backpack on his back and . . . green skin.

"Class, I would like to introduce the newest, hopeless appendage to the student body." Ms. Bitters said. "His name is . . . Zim. Zim, if you have something to say, say it now, because after this moment," She twisted herself around and hissed right into Zim's face, "I don't wanna hear another sound from you!" She bared her teeth and then flew back behind her desk, her dress a purple streak behind her.

Zim blinked, then looked forwards and grinned widely. Everyone just carried on with whatever they were doing, ignoring him just like they had ignored me yesterday.

"Hello, friends! I am a perfectly normal human worm baby. You have nothing, absolutely nothing to fear from me. Just pay no attention to me and we'll get along fine."

"Alright. Take your seat now, Zim." Ms. Bitters said.

Zim walked to an empty desk in the front row and sat down in front of the purple haired girl I had briefly talked to yesterday. I stared at him for a minute, then turned my attention back to the vampire version of Ms. Bitters I had started drawing in my notebook last class.

A new kid with green skin. That was almost as weird as canned peanut butter sandwiches.  
I made the exaggerated claws on my drawing even more pointy.

"Today's lecture is about outer space," Ms. Bitters announced, "And how it will eventually implode in on itself!"

Yay. Science.

"Yes, Zim?" Ms. Bitters asked a few seconds later.

I glanced up and saw Zim standing on his desk with both his hands up in the air. He seemed to notice everybody staring at him and plunked back down in his seat. "In the event of, say, a full-scale alien invasion, how prepared do you think this planet's defenses would be? Tell me!"

Ms. Bitters raised one eyebrow slightly. "As I was saying," she continued, "the universe is just doomed. Doom, doom, doom, doom, doooom . . ." She trailed off and a bug crawled across her face. I shuddered and went back to my drawing.

"Okay, am I the only one here who sees the alien sitting in class?" Someone near the front of the room said.

I looked around the classroom along with everybody else.

"There!" The black-haired kid, who I recognized as Dib said.

We looked around some more.

"Right there!" Dib pointed right at Zim. "That is no kid! He's an alien! An alien! One of the monsters I've been talking about! He's here to conquer Earth!"

I blinked. And here I thought _I_ talked fast.

"Aw, not this again." The girl behind Zim leaned forwards and onto his chair. "You're crazy!"

"W-what about his horrible green head!?" Dib demanded, and actually did look kind of crazy as he jumped up on top of his desk.

"Insolent fool boy!" Zim shrieked, then lowered his voice. "It's a . . skin condition." He said quite calmly.

Oh, well that made sense. I chewed on my eraser and debated whether to add a bunch of bats to my picture or not.

"But he's got no ears!" Dib said. I looked up again and saw him getting in the face of the girl beside him and pointing to his own ears. "Is that part of your skin condition, Zim? No ears?"

". . . Yes." Zim said quietly, looking down at his desk.

Silence.

Mostly everyone turned to glare hostilely at Dib.

"Man, Dib. You think that just 'cause someone looks different, you can call them an alien?" A boy wearing a dark green sweater said.

Dib didn't say anything for a minute. Then he jumped off of his desk and walked over to the chalkboard, drew something, then put down his chalk and picked up a pointer. "Okay, see this is us." He pointed to a sketch labeled 'normal human being'. "Now over here," he pointed to a picture of a short, bug-eyed thing with antennas, "Over here is Zim. See the difference? Anyone? Anyone? Questions?"

"Yeah. What's wrong with you?" A dark-haired kid demanded. "All you talk about is aliens, and ghosts, and seeing Bigfoot in your garage!"

"He was using the belt sander . . ." Dib said weakly.

"Yeah, he's always saying stuff." Zim rolled his eyes. "I remember that one time when-"

"Hey!" Dib interrupted. "You just got here! Don't let him trick you! I know what I'm talking about, and there it is... sitting right there!" He angrily pointed at Zim again.

"Well . . . he does look pretty weird . . . " Someone said.

"Yeah," Someone else agreed with the first someone. "And he is sitting!"

Zim looked around with shifty eyes.

"Ya see? Actual proof that all the things I've been saying are actually right!" Dib grinned. "Finally, a way to prove that I'm, that I'm. . . "

"That I'm crazy!" Zim mimicked in a 'doi' kind of voice.

". . . Okay, now that makes sense." The purple-haired girl said.

In front of me, Chunk said, "Man, we almost believed him!"

Dib twitched a little. He glared at Zim with his eyes narrowed. Zim gripped the sides of his desk with his gloved hands and glared right back.

"Doom, doom, doom. Go home now!" Ms. Bitters snapped.

The bell rang and everyone grabbed their stuff. Some kids even started climbing out of the classroom windows, but I decide to follow the semi-normal ones and just use the door.

When I walked out the front door of the Skool, I almost bumped into Zim, who was standing there and looking sort of alarmed. Probably because Dib was standing at the bottom of the steps and grinning all crazy-like. I noticed he was holding what looked like a pair of handcuffs, and watched as he lunged forwards.

Zim jumped just in time to avoid him, landed right on Dib's back, and started running away. "Leave me alone! I just wanna go home and be all normaaaaaal!"

Dib jumped up off of the ground and started chasing him across the Skool yard.

What a weird day.

I barely noticed my feet moving until I found myself turning into our crescent. When I started to cross the street, something flew past with a bunch of smoke trailing behind it.

"Gah!" I jumped, and coughed, and waved my hands in front of my face, trying to see through the thick, white smoke as someone else came running past. I heard a door slam violently.

"Your little tricks won't fool me, Zim! I know where you live now!" It was Dib. I stepped a little to the side and out of the smoke, and watched him run up to a funny-looking house a few doors down from mine. "You can't hide forever!" He stuck his head up against a window. "And if you can, then I'll wait forever!"

I stared. Since when has a funny-looking house been there? It was green and had a pink roof and a bunch of oddly-shaped windows. There were a bunch of bug-eyed blowfish and lawn gnome things with pointy red hats on the grass.

Some of the lawn gnomes looked like they were moving. They _were_ moving.  
I squinted at the one nearest to Dib as its head swiveled slowly around to face him.

"I've been preparing for this all my life!" Dib started pounding on the purple door. "I-"

A red laser shot out from the lawn gnomes' eye and vaporized the handcuffs he was holding.

Dib looked down at his now empty hand.

Wide-eyed and more than a little alarmed, I turned and ran to my house.


End file.
